The Toronto Film Festival is underway and that means a fresh round of Oscar Watch posts hitting the blog after Venice and Telluride provided their own.
Last night, David Gordon Green’s Stronger screened. It tells the true story of Jeff Bauman, who lost his legs during the Boston Marathon bombing with Jake Gyllenhaal playing him. Early reviews have been positive yet it probably won’t factor into the Picture or Director races.
Gyllenhaal is a different story. His performance has been praised and it would not be surprising if he landed his first nod for Best Actor (he did get a Supporting Actor nomination for 2005’s BrokebackMountain). Additionally, the Actor race seems somewhat light at press time and the voters could make up for other nominations Gyllenhaal could have received (Nightcrawler anyone?).
Costar Tatiana Maslany could also find herself in discussion for a Supporting Actress nod over her costar Miranda Richardson.
Bottom line: Toronto has bolstered the chances for Gyllenhaal to be among the five finalists for Best Actor.
It’s deeper and more relatable fears that allow It it’s most effective scares. That is the truth emanating from the Stephen King source material. Yes, clowns are creepy. Yet the other items that frighten our kid cast here are creepier – those of loss, innocence, bullying, and even free will to just be a young teen.
Andy Muschietti’s version of the King classic moves the book’s actions from the 1950s (when the author was a boy) to 1989, making those StrangerThings comparisons apt. It’s summer in Derry, Maine where the rate of missing persons – especially kids – is astronomical. The prologue shows us how poor little seven-year old Georgie earned his milk carton status. It involves a meeting with demented clown Pennywise (Bill Skarsgard), luring the child into the sewer. Eight months later, Georgie’s older brother Bill (Jaeden Lieberher) is desperately trying to find him. He’s part of a group known as The Losers. They include Beverly (Sophia Lillis), who’s got an undeserved reputation at school for being loose but whose real circumstances are far more terrifying and sad. There’s Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor), the overweight new kid on the block who coincidentally and humorously is a fan of New Kids on the Block. Richie (Finn Wolfhard from StrangerThings) is the nerd who can’t keep his foul mouth shut. Eddie (Jack Dylan Grazer) is a hypochondriac, Stan (Wyatt Oleff) is the doubter of the bunch, and Mike (Chosen Jacobs) is the homeschooled orphan. All of The Losers soon experience their own visions of Pennywise and come to realize they must defeat him since no one else seems willing to.
Pennywise’s reign of terror seems to occur every 27 years in Derry, but there’s other issues the kids must deal with each day. Sophia with her abusive dad. Eddie with his overprotective mom. A nasty bully named Bowers (Nicholas Hamilton) who’s nearly as dangerous as the title character. Ben having to admit his affection for both Sophia and those five crooners from Boston. And so on. Pennywise (with credit to Skarsgard’s performance) does have his moments of heebie jeebie glory, but they usually come with a simple facial expression and most of them are early on. The clown loses a bit of luster when an over reliance on CGI with “It” comes into play. What remains is the genuine creepiness happening with some of the kids daily lives. That trumps the increasingly milder scares involving Pennywise.
It helps tremendously that the performances of the young actors are all first-rate. Sophia Lillis has a young Amy Adams vibe and Lieberher (who already showed his chops in St. Vincent and MidnightSpecial) is an effective Loser leader. Stephen King was able to subtly write a coming of age story filled with heart that just happened to have a demented circus freak in the mix. Muschietti and his screenwriters pick up on that with this adaptation to mostly satisfying results.
As you may have noticed on the blog over the last few days, there’s been an influx of Oscar Watch posts up due to the Telluride and Venice Film Festivals shedding light on some contenders.
Today begins my weekly column covering the big six races (Picture, Director, the four acting categories, and both screenplay categories). It will be updated every Thursday up until nominations are announced next year (with a final predictions posts the Monday before they are revealed).
Here’s how it works: I’m listing my current predictions in each race, with 25 selections for Best Picture and 15 in the others. When we get a bit further down the road, the predictions will go to 15 Best Picture possibilities and 10 in the rest. I am indeed ranking them, but note that just because I rank something as #1, that doesn’t mean I think it will win. It just means I believe at this time that it has the current best shot at actually getting nominated. Beginning next week, you’ll see how the rankings change and alter from week to week… and change and alter they most certainly will.
So here goes with my first weekly Oscar predictions!
Best Picture
Predicted Nominees:
1. Dunkirk
2. The Post
3. Darkest Hour
4. Mudbound
5. Call Me by Your Name
6. Battle of the Sexes
7. The Shape of Water
8. Downsizing
9. The Greatest Showman
Other Possibilities:
10. Last Flag Flying
11. Phantom Thread
12. Wonder Wheel
13. mother!
14. Detroit
15. Blade Runner 2049
16. Goodbye Christopher Robin
17. Wonderstruck
18. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
19. Coco
20. Get Out
21. Wind River
22. Lady Bird
23. Wonder Woman
24. Molly’s Game
25. Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Best Director
Predicted Nominees:
1. Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk
2. Steven Spielberg, The Post
3. Dee Rees, Mudbound
4. Joe Wright, Darkest Hour
5. Luca Guadagnino, Call Me by Your Name
Other Possibilities:
6. Guillermo del Toro, The Shape of Water
7. Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, Battle of the Sexes
8. Denis Villeneuve, Blade Runner 2049
9. Alexander Payne, Downsizing
10. Paul Thomas Anderson, Phantom Thread
11. Kathryn Bigelow, Detroit
12. Richard Linklater, Last Flag Flying
13. Darren Aronofsky, mother!
14. Michael Gracey, The Greatest Showman
15. Woody Allen, Wonder Wheel
Best Actor
Predicted Nominees:
1. Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour
2. Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread
3. Hugh Jackman, The Greatest Showman
4. Tom Hanks, The Post
5. Joaquin Phoenix, You Were Never Really Here
Other Possibilities:
6. Steve Carell, Battle of the Sexes
7. Domhnall Gleeson, Goodbye Christopher Robin
8. Jake Gyllenhaal, Stronger
9. Timothee Chalamet, Call Me by Your Name
10. Matt Damon, Downsizing
11. Andrew Garfield, Breathe
12. Donald Sutherland, The Leisure Seeker
13. Liam Neeson, Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House
14. Jeremy Renner, Wind River
15. Denzel Washington, Roman Israel Esq.
Best Actress
Predicted Nominees:
1. Emma Stone, Battle of the Sexes
2. Meryl Streep, The Post
3. Jessica Chastain, Molly’s Game
4. Kate Winslet, Wonder Wheel
5. Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Other Possibilities:
6. Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water
7. Annette Bening, Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool
8. Daniela Vega, A Fantastic Woman
9. Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird
10. Judi Dench, Victoria and Abdul
11. Carey Mulligan, Mudbound
12. Diane Kruger, In the Fade
13. Jennifer Lawrence, mother!
14. Isabelle Huppert, Happy End
15. Jane Fonda, Our Souls at Night
Best Supporting Actor
Predicted Nominees:
1. Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project
2. Ben Mendelsohn, Darkest Hour
3. Armie Hammer, Call Me by Your Name
4. Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
5. Mark Rylance, Dunkirk
Other Possibilities:
6. Michael Stuhlbarg, Call Me by Your Name
7. Michael Shannon, The Shape of Water
8. Jason Mitchell, Mudbound
9. Laurence Fishburne, Last Flag Flying
10. James Franco, The Disaster Artist
11. Idris Elba, Molly’s Game
12. Patrick Stewart, Logan
13. Woody Harrelson, The Glass Castle
14. Will Poulter, Detroit
15. Christoph Waltz, Downsizing
Best Supporting Actress
Predicted Nominees:
1. Melissa Leo, Novitiate
2. Hong Chau, Downsizing
3. Kristin Scott Thomas, Darkest Hour
4. Octavia Spencer, The Shape of Water
5. Mary J. Blige, Mudbound
Other Possibilities:
6. Margot Robbie, Goodbye Christopher Robin
7. Michelle Pfeiffer, mother!
8. Michelle Williams, The Greatest Showman
9. Kirsten Dunst, The Beguiled
10. Millicent Simmonds, Wonderstruck
11. Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird
12. Lesley Manville, Phantom Thread
13. Julianne Moore, Suburbicon
14. Holly Hunter, The Big Sick
15. Juno Temple, Wonder Wheel
Best Adapted Screenplay
Predicted Nominees:
1. The Post
2. Mudbound
3. Call Me by Your Name
4. Last Flag Flying
5. Molly’s Game
Other Possibilities:
6. Wonderstruck
7. You Were Never Really Here
8. Victoria and Abdul
9. The Beguiled
10. The Disaster Artist
11. Blade Runner 2049
12. Stronger
13. Wonder
14. My Cousin Rachel
15. Logan
Best Original Screenplay
Predicted Nominees:
1. Darkest Hour
2. Battle of the Sexes
3. The Shape of Water
4. Wonder Wheel
5. Downsizing
Other Possibilities:
6. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
7. Get Out
8. Phantom Thread
9. Dunkirk
10. The Big Sick
11. Lady Bird
12. The Florida Project
13. mother!
14. The Greatest Showman
15. Goodbye Christopher Robin
And there you have it! My first ranked predictions for the Oscar race. Next Thursday, I’ll have the updated projections…
Lionsgate Films is hoping American Assassin successfully targets action fans when it debuts next weekend. The pic features Maze Runner star Dylan O’Brien as a CIA recruit teamed with a Cold War vet played by Michael Keaton. Sanaa Lathan and Taylor Kitsch costar in this effort from director Michael Cuesta (who last made the Jeremy Renner thriller Kill the Messenger).
The biggest draw here should be Keaton, who’s experienced a genuine career resurgence that began with back to back Best Picture winners Birdman and Spotlight in 2014 and 2015 and continued this summer with his well-received villainous turn in Spider-Man: Homecoming.
Assassin also has the benefit of being the only straight up action pic geared towards a male audience. That said, there is still competition with It‘s second weekend and mother!‘s first.
Reviews (not out at press time) could cause a revision here, but I’ll project Assassin ends up hitting low to possibly mid teens.
American Assassin opening weekend prediction: $13.3 million
Darren Aronofsky’s mother! received quite the splashy debut at the Venice Film Festival over the weekend and stateside audiences will render their verdict on September 15th. Oscar winners Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem headline the psychological horror thriller with a supporting cast including Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer, Kristin Wiig, and Domhnall Gleeson.
Critical reaction from mother! has been something to witness, with some reviews labeling it a masterwork from the Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan auteur. Other notices haven’t gone that far, but all seem to agree it will push the audience’s buttons with its out there approach. The pic stands at 82% on Rotten Tomatoes currently.
Here are the pluses as I see them when it comes to potential box office performance. First, it’s headlined by Jennifer Lawrence and that should be a draw for some. Second, the buzz surrounding it could create a “you have to witness this thing” for yourself type of vibe.
One minus is a considerable one. The It factor. The Stephen King adaptation is riding its own higher decibel wave of chatter and should still be garnering big grosses in its sophomore weekend. It could easily divert some moviegoers away from this.
I’ll predict mother! begins with a low to mid teens output and it’ll be fascinating to see how it progresses or regresses from there (its Cinemascore rating could be an interesting indicator).
The Big Sick is a pleasing combination of a romantic comedy that feels one part wholly original as it comes from the real life experiences of stand-up Kumail Nanjiani, essentially playing himself. The other part is not without imperfections and that could be called the Judd Apatow part, who produced it. Like Apatow’s best work, there’s plenty of heart, laughs, and observations about the comedy scene. Like even in his best work (and certainly his most middling pictures), it’s a bit too long and occasionally veers into semi-stale territory.
That said, Nanjiani’s creation takes you out of typical genre territory for most of its two-hour running time. Sick was written by its star and wife Emily V. Gordon and it takes a page out of their true life experiences. Pakistani comic Kumail Nanjiani portrays Pakistani comic Kumail Nanjiani, who’s struggling to make ends meet doing night gigs in Chicago while also driving an Uber. One night he’s pleasantly heckled on stage by Emily (Zoe Kazan) and the two hit it off post show. A one-night stand that transpires over several nights occurs – in the sense that they keep saying it’s the last one-night stand. She’s busy in grad school, he’s doing his career thing. Before they know it, they realize they’re in some sort of feeling resembling love yet they dare not say it.
Kumail can’t tell his family of his new whatever he and Emily call it. His background demands that he enter an arranged marriage with a girl of Pakistani ethnicity and his parents (especially Mom) bring a slew of such women to the dinner table every time Kumail comes to dinner. It’s this complication that soon ends the relationship.
The title comes into play when Emily is rushed to the hospital and put into a medically induced coma. Kumail is informed and he soon meets Emily’s folks (Ray Romano and Holly Hunter). Their knowledge of their daughter’s former relationship is the opposite of Kumail’s parents. They know everything and aren’t exactly warm to the idea of Kumail hanging around the ICU.
The Big Sick, more often than not, avoids many typical rom com cliches. Some of this is due to one of the leads not being available for a solid portion of the proceedings. This allows Kumail and Emily’s parents to develop a fascinating dynamic. Veteran performers Hunter and Romano make the best of their parts and their marriage is an interesting one in itself. The screenplay is refreshingly honest in a way that few in the genre manage to be. Kumail is far from perfect in how he handles situations, but not in an overly broad silly way. He’s trying and it’s not easy to balance his cultural leanings and his feelings for Emily. Kazan is charming and vulnerable as Emily, as she slowly realizes the difficulties involved with dating Kumail.
We get a little bit of exploring the stand-up comedy scene as Kumail is trying to land a sought after spot at the Montreal Comedy Festival. There’s nothing terribly new about that aspect of the script (Apatow covered it well in Funny People), but Nanjiani is certainly familiar with it. And that’s what really puts The Big Sick in satisfying territory. Nanjiani and his spouse write what they know – each other. And you root for them to work it all out.
The fall box office officially is underway this weekend and it can’t come soon enough after a truly lackluster end to the summer season. This season is looking to kick off in record breaking fashion with the release of Stephen King adapted horror pic It as well as the Reese Witherspoon rom com Home Again. You can read my detailed prediction posts on each of them here:
Riding a wave of solid buzz coupled with its eerie TV spots and trailers, It is shaping up to be an event film. My estimate easily makes it the highest September debut of all time and biggest horror opening in history.
Home Again should easily be #2 considering the extreme lack of competition, but the question is how effective it will be as counter programming for female audiences. I have it just under a teens debut as it hopes to leg out in subsequent weekends.
The rest of the top five will be filled with holdovers. The Hitman’s Bodyguard three week reign on top will be over. Last weekend’s #2 Annabelle: Creation may suffer the largest decline because of the It factor.
And with that, my top 5 predictions for the weekend:
1. It
Predicted Gross: $65.4 million
2. Home Again
Predicted Gross: $11.3 million
3. TheHitman’sBodyguard
Predicted Gross: $5.4 million (representing a drop of 48%)
4. WindRiver
Predicted Gross: $3.6 million (representing a drop of 43%)
5. Annabelle: Creation
Predicted Gross: $3.5 million (representing a drop of 54%)
Box Office Results (September 1-4)
As anticipated, the summer movie season closed with a whimper. That said, most of the holdovers help up better than my estimates while two newcomers couldn’t manage to find an audience. Even though my forecasts were low, this was still the weakest Labor Day frame in 17 years.
The Hitman’s Bodyguard placed first for the third weekend in a row with $13.2 million, managing to easily surpass my $8.9M projection. It ends its run in first place with $57 million total.
Annballe: Creation was second with $9.1 million – topping my meager $5.7M estimate for a tally of $90 million.
WindRiver continued a laudible run, climbing to third with $7.8 million (I was under with $5.1M). It’s made $20 million thus far.
Animated Leap! was fourth with $6.2 million (I said $5.4M) to see its total jump to $12 million.
Dunkirk rounded out the top five with $5.5 million, ahead of my $4.2M prediction. The Oscar hopeful has amassed $180 million.
Aforementioned newbies both bombed. Latin comedy HazloComoHombre earned a measly $1.4 million (I went higher with $3.5M). Long delayed Alicia Vikander period piece TulipFever fared even worse at $1.3 million (I predicted $1.9M). Those debuts were good for 22nd and 24th place, respectively. Ouch.
And here we are! After my first round of predictions covering the acting categories and Best Director, we arrive at Best Picture. The Telluride and Venice Film Festivals have shed light on some potentials heavyweights (Darkest Hour, Battle of the Sexes, The Shape of Water, MAYBE Downsizing) while others (Suburbicon, Victoria and Abdul, Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool) have mostly fallen by the wayside. Obviously there’s many pictures left to screen, but here’s my first blush round of Best Picture nominees.
As you may know, the number of nominated movies can be anywhere from 5-10, but nine has seemed to be the magic number in most years so we’ll go with that. On Thursday, I’ll post my first weekly column where potential nominees in Picture, Director, all four acting races, and both screenplay categories are ranked as to possibility of nomination in this blogger’s mind.
The Telluride Film Festival over the weekend has showcased yet another Best Actress hopeful. This time it’s Lady Bird with Saoirse Ronan and the buzz is loud enough that she looks like a real contender for her third nomination.
The coming-of-age drama marks the directorial debut of actress Greta Gerwig. Reviews from Telluride suggest it’s a winner. If Ronan can emerge from an increasingly crowded field in Best Actress, it would come a decade after her first nod for Supporting Actress in Atonement and two years following her lead nomination in Brooklyn. Critics were also quick to praise the supporting work of veteran performer Laurie Metcalf, who could find herself in the Supporting Actress derby. Gerwig also wrote the screenplay and may have a better shot at Original Screenplay recognition over her direction.
If Lady Bird‘s distributor A24 mounts a major campaign, it could even be a long shot player for a Picture nom. One thing seems certain, though. Ronan is once again in the mix for three nominations at just the age of 23.
Continuing on with my earliest Oscar predictions, we are at Best Director before my initial Best Picture estimates. At this juncture, it’s safe to assume that the five directors I’ve selected will all see their movies on my list for Picture when that’s posted.
Obviously we are early in the Oscar predictin’ game, but here goes with the directors!
Here’s my quick tale – the Telluride and Venice Festivals over the weekend increased the chances for several directors, including Joe Wright (Darkest Hour), Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (Battle of the Sexes), and Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water). Same goes for Alexander Payne in Downsizing, but the reaction for it has been slightly more split.
I’m reserving a predicted spot for Steven Spielberg for his Nixon era tale The Post (formerly known as The Papers). The rest of my predicted nominees are from films already out or screened. As always, lots could change but here goes for now!
TODD’S EARLY OSCAR PREDICTIONS – BEST DIRECTOR
Luca Guadagnino, Call Me by Your Name
Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk
Dee Rees, Mudbound
Steven Spielberg, The Post
Joe Wright, Darkest Hour
Other Possibilities:
Paul Thomas Anderson, Phantom Thread
Darren Aronofsky, mother!
Kathryn Bigelow, Detroit
Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, Battle of the Sexes
All My Life... I Wanted To Be A Blogster 